WootBot

When I wear my U-Boat watch, I get the urge to skip along the neighborhood, humming and singing to myself. I can't help it. My love and passion for my U-Boat watch is just so strong. That's all. It's just simple, perfectly natural love between a person and a watch.U-Boat official site

Quality Posts

sunbc

Very nice watches. Usual price on this is around 2400-3000 depending on the combination. Although, the movement is decent, for the same price you can get some other decent watches, and these don't hold value as well as other makes.

bruce57

joecooool wrote:To be fair, most watches with that movement retail for between $1,000 and $2,000, so this price isn't that far out of line.

However, you better really like it if you buy it, because the resale on this off brand really sucks.

Let's face it — the resale value of many watches suck...unless you buy a brand either with a cost in the stratosphere or one that invests about $25M a year in advertising — and in that case, you won't touch one of 'em with a 7750 movement for this price.

FYI: for folks "not into watches" — the Valjoux 7750 (aka ETA 7750) — is an automatic chronograph. The cost of watches with an automatic movement rise in relation to (among other things) its complications. The 7750 is an automatic with three subdials plus a date wheel. Although a lot of higher-end watchmakers use it as a base and perform proprietary custom touches to it, in stock form it's perhaps the best movement you can buy for a relatively decent price.

mybestuser1

I have seen fake U-Boat watches for around $100. Be careful there are Chinese imitations out there and you want to be sure the watch is genuine. These are probably real but you should still confirm the model is genuine.

ThunderThighs

mybestuser1 wrote:I have seen fake U-Boat watches for around $100. Be careful there are Chinese imitations out there and you want to be sure the watch is genuine. These are probably real but you should still confirm the model is genuine.

Parodius

johnlafreniere wrote:Could someone just make an app that lets me look at my phone to see what time it is so I wouldn't have to keep spending so muck money on watches?

Watches are a jewelry piece, one of the few masculine pieces you can wear without looking like a Jersey Shore wannabe or a rapper.

You don't have to spend a ton of money on a watch. Those super expensive watches don't hold time any better than the cheaper watches. They do tend to have more complex movements which require greater craftsmen ship. That's probably the only major difference someone would notice with a cheap and expensive watch, is the movement. Aside from that people get very hung up on brand names to show off, that's really what watches are about now. But there are some people who enjoy the craftsmen ship involved.

I prefer wearing a watch because I think it looks good. Also it's convenient and very quick. I used to use my phone but the Steve Jobs phone has a horrible battery life, I'd rather carry the watch rather than risk draining the battery especially if it's during a time when I need to be available and don't have a charger readily available which is all of the time.

wenda86

Not all uses the Valjoux/ETA7750, a few of these models comes with Valgranges A07.211 (note the further date window relative to the center of the watch and how the movement looks like through the display caseback). This is a more expensive/larger movement suited for a larger watche. Even a few of higher end brands e.g.: Chopard uses this base movemement.

For the price it is asking for, it's actually worth it. This is the going rate for a second hand or used U Boat watches.

A used Seamaster Chronograph in Titanium will command slightly higher prices than these.

Tsurugi

So I'll bite: What makes these worth so much? There are people who don't have that much money to spend on food in a year. We artificially create value in worthless things while others starve. The fact that excess like this exists is honestly pretty sickening.

spmcgivern

Tsurugi wrote:So I'll bite: What makes these worth so much? There are people who don't have that much money to spend on food in a year. We artificially create value in worthless things while others starve. The fact that excess like this exists is honestly pretty sickening.

Everyone has a guilty pleasure. No need to poop on everyone else's parade just because you don't like expensive watches.

highvolt82

Tsurugi wrote:So I'll bite: What makes these worth so much? There are people who don't have that much money to spend on food in a year. We artificially create value in worthless things while others starve. The fact that excess like this exists is honestly pretty sickening.

Everything we do is in excess. Unless you donate all of your spare money and time to charity, you really can't complain about people enjoying cool things with the money they earned.

gwpriester

I would expect to pay $50-150 for a watch like this. This watch is no different from watches in this price range except the manufacturers have decided to overvalue the product to attract persons with large amounts of money to spend.

Citizen EcoDrive watches are excellent in that they never need winding and never need batteries. They get their power from any light source, even indirect sunlight. And they cost a whole lot less and are a damn site more attractive.

Canthros

gwpriester wrote:This watch is no different from watches in this [$50-150] price range

That's not, strictly speaking, true. You're not going to find a self-winding, mechanical watch for very much under $200. And, when you do, it won't have a date window, sub dials, etc. You'd be doing very well to find an automatic watch that has a hacking movement and is hand-windable at that price point, even with a Chinese movement. You can buy quartz watches all day long at that price, of course, but a quartz movement isn't really the same thing.

I'd be willing to bet that this isn't entirely true, either. At least, I have a Seiko Kinetic, which is a nice enough watch and a good timekeeper, but it absolutely has batteries. I'd be positively shocked if Citizen's EcoDrive didn't have batteries of some sort. As long as that's so, they'll need replacing sooner or later, when they stop holding a charge.

All that said, I think there's a lot of truth to the arguments that these are too much money for too little value for a lot of people (including me!), and, from a purely functional standpoint, a quartz movement will be a better timepiece for most.

(And, of course, you'd be paying a premium for the brand, relative to a hypothetical, comparable watch with a similarly-sized discount. )

asgarbe

Canthros wrote:I'd be positively shocked if Citizen's EcoDrive didn't have batteries of some sort. As long as that's so, they'll need replacing sooner or later, when they stop holding a charge.

This is true. My wife and I each have EcoDrives 7 or 10 years old. They of course have batteries. Both of ours have died, i.e. won't hold a charge. And replacing the battery is $100+.
Until I found that out, we loved them. Now they're just sitting on the dresser waiting for me to pony up to send them in for repair.

marknixon

This is a status symbol. Nothing more. If you are into making a status statement, buy the watch. It's like buying a BMW or Mercedes. Nothing pragmatic about it whatsoever. It is simply making a statement.
My statements are made with words. Not objects. They mean more.

lwang

gwpriester wrote:Citizen EcoDrive watches are excellent in that they never need winding and never need batteries. They get their power from any light source, even indirect sunlight. And they cost a whole lot less and are a damn site more attractive.

Just my dos centavos.

That's old skool. Citizen now has atomic ecodrive...people who likes to keep their watch 10 minutes fast need not apply.

radi0j0hn

marknixon wrote:This is a status symbol. Nothing more. If you are into making a status statement, buy the watch. It's like buying a BMW or Mercedes. Nothing pragmatic about it whatsoever. It is simply making a statement.
My statements are made with words. Not objects. They mean more.

Status symbol assumes that your associates are impressed with a $1,700 piece of flash on your wrist. I am surrounded with people who feed orphans in Peru and help with heating assistance and credit card debt in the USA. They are not impressed with such a watch.

Father Joe Walijewski wore a Timex. When he died 5 years ago, the entire city of Lima, Peru came out to carry his casket through the streets, showering it with flower petals. He's also a candidate for sainthood! Not bad for a poor guy with a Timex.

dave17

Maybe I'm being oversensitive,but I'm kind of put off by anything named after a weapon that killed thousands of innocent people in the service of pure evil.I'd be creeped out to have one of these on my wrist.

erasure101

gwpriester wrote:I would expect to pay $50-150 for a watch like this. This watch is no different from watches in this price range except the manufacturers have decided to overvalue the product to attract persons with large amounts of money to spend.

Citizen EcoDrive watches are excellent in that they never need winding and never need batteries. They get their power from any light source, even indirect sunlight. And they cost a whole lot less and are a damn site more attractive.

Just my dos centavos.

i'd like to see you find an automatic chronograph for $50-$150.

ecodrives are very nice (i have two myself), but they're still pieces of electronics. the capacitors and batteries will eventually fail and need replacing. while batteries are easy to replace, if there is something other than the battery that fails the entire circuit generally needs to be replaced. on the other hand, mechanical watches can be repaired. for ubiquitous movements like the 7750, replacement parts are readily available. a mechanical watch can be a family heirloom for this reason, unlike a quartz watch.

you can get a great affordable japanese automatic from the likes of citizen, seiko, and orient in the $50-$150 range. as good as they are, the 7750 is a great movement. it's leaps and bounds better than the movements you find in affordable japanese watches. however, you can find cheaper (and imho better looking) watches that utilize it than the u-boats offered here.

sunbc

gwpriester wrote:I would expect to pay $50-150 for a watch like this. This watch is no different from watches in this price range except the manufacturers have decided to overvalue the product to attract persons with large amounts of money to spend.

Citizen EcoDrive watches are excellent in that they never need winding and never need batteries. They get their power from any light source, even indirect sunlight. And they cost a whole lot less and are a damn site more attractive.

fumduq

Canthros wrote:I'd be willing to bet that this isn't entirely true, either. At least, I have a Seiko Kinetic, which is a nice enough watch and a good timekeeper, but it absolutely has batteries. I'd be positively shocked if Citizen's EcoDrive didn't have batteries of some sort. As long as that's so, they'll need replacing sooner or later, when they stop holding a charge.

It's true (that the Eco-drive uses a battery). From my current experience with Eco-drive watches, I had one in the drawer for too long and it died. I've replaced the capacitor hoping that was why I couldn't get the watch going even after days of direct sunlight only to find that there is a non-user-replaceable battery obviously behind it that appears to have gone dead. So it's now a case of whether to toss the citizen, or send it in for what is likely to be a repair costing around 50% of what market value of the watch is.

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